Chapter 5

Answer : Indian villages are in a state of flux. Change is coming into all the areas in villager’s lives. The Indian village has undergone significant changes particularly since independence. Caste system was no more confined itself only to jajmani based social and economic relations. The jajmani system itself had declined to a large extent as a result of amplified contact with nearby towns and also with the introduction of new and improved technological devices in agriculture. ....

Answer : According to UNESCO, any language that is spoken by less than 10,000 people is potentially endangered. An endangered language is one that is likely to become extinct in the near future. Many languages are failing out of use and being replaced by others that are more widely used in the region or nation. Unless current trends are reversed, these endangered languages will become extinct within the next century.

Many other languages are no longer being learned ....

Answer : Village studies are done in India since 1861 when Henry Maine wrote ‘Ancient Law’ in 1861 with focus on land system in India. Robert Redfield (in 1930) was the first anthropologist who carried out systematic village studies in Mexico. Village studies boomed during the 1950s and 1960s rejuvenating the discipline of social anthropology. Since then village studies are carried out in different parts of world. In India also, village ....

Answer : A simple definition of mass media would be is the means used to communicate to a vast audience i.e., the general public. The technologies used to achieve this task are manifold. Media isn’t just a vital part of communication between individuals, but it also acts as an instrument of social change. Modern media includes the collective communication tools and outlets used to store and deliver information or data.

• The spread of information, also known as ....

Answer : The women constitute half of the society. The feudal attitudes of looking down upon the abilities of women and not promoting them is still continuing in different degrees at various levels of our society. Our society cannot run without women. A woman plays several roles like mother, wife, sister, and daughter in our society. Empowerment of women is essentially the process of upliftment of economic, social and political status of women, the traditionally underprivileged ones, ....

Answer : Ever since India got independence, the Muslims who opted to make India as their homeland have to witness numerous problems in terms of their economy, education, politics and culture. Rather their miseries and deprivations even multiplied as compared to colonial period of sway. As Gopal Singh Committee Report 1983, the Sachar Report 2006, and lastly, the Ranganath Report 2007 manifest the other side of the story against the Indian government’s claim that the Muslims are ....

Answer : In the course of its history, India has witnessed a unique cultural synthesis in spite of its incredible diversities. As a result, the structure of Indian society is very complex. The contemporary Indian society and its social and cultural organization is the outcome of interaction between multiple traditions of India that is great, little, national, regional, local, western and now global.

The mutual coexistence and integration actually helped in generating a unique civilization of this country ....

Answer : India lives in villages. Still, 2/3rdof our population (nearly 83 crore people) lives in the village. The structure, order and features of villages have always attracted anthropologists and many village studies are done by S. C. Dube, D. N. Majumdar, M. N. Srinivas and many other anthropologists.

According to M.N. Srinivas, village studies provide detailed information regarding various aspects of rural life. In these studies, either the holistic nature ....

Answer : Tribe-Caste continuum and Sanskritization, both involve interaction between two or more communities having socio-cultural differences, but the similarities between the two ends here. The two processes have a lot of differences among them. Tribe-Caste Continuum (TCC) is defined as a gradual transition from tribe condition to caste condition,leading to high similarities or overlap of customs, traditions or norms between two, making it difficult to separate the two at intermediate levels.

Sanskritization is defined as the process ....

Answer : Human Settlement means cluster of dwellings of any type or size where human beings live. For this purpose, people may erect houses and other structures and command some area or territory as their economic support-base. Thus, the process of settlement inherently involves grouping of people and apportioning of territory as their resource base. The village is the soul of India. We have more than 6-lakh villages spread across various terrains with populations ranging from 2 ....

Answer : Village studies are done in India since 1861 when Henry Maine wrote ‘Ancient Law’ in 1861 with focus on land system in India. Robert Redfield (in 1930) was the first anthropologist who carried out systematic village studies in Mexico. Village studies boomed during the 1950’s and 1960’s rejuvenating the discipline of social anthropology. Since then village studies are carried out in different parts of world.

In India also, village studies ....

Answer : Media is the means through which information is transmitted and plays a major role in development and change within the society. While it has been influencing Indian society in the form of print media, radio, television, since pre independence times, the recent development of internet enlarged its role. It aids the changes in social, cultural and political spheres.

We cannot ignore the fact that social media is one of the biggest element that is present in ....

Answer : After land-reforms, introduction of formal Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) based on universal adult franchise under Article 243 (73rd amendment). Further, in 1996 it was extended to 5th schedule areas through PESA, bringing significant changes in the little republics power structure with many social changes.

The role of Panchayati Raj Institutions as instruments of rural reconstruction and development needs no emphasis. They have been reorganized with wider powers and financial resources not merely as institutions of political ....

Answer : Caste mobility as a process of social and cultural change has been explained by M. N. Srinivas in his concept of Sanskritisation. The widespread social and cultural process called Sanskritization is a process, where a low Hindu caste changes its customs, rites, rituals, ideology and way of life in the direction of high and specifically twice-born castes. This has paved the way for mobility to occur, within the caste ....

Answer : India is a land of diversity and home to almost all the major religions of world (except Confucianism of China). While, Hindu’s are the majority with around 80% population, rest of the people are divided into Muslims, Christians, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Parsis, Jews and Animalism. The National Commission of Minorities Act, 1992 notifies five religious communities as minorities: Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians.

Article 29 states “Any Section of the citizens residing in the territory ....

Answer : Globalization in literal sense is a process of transformation of regional or local phenomena into global ones. Globalization is making a considerable impact on all aspect of human life directly or indirectly in everywhere in the world and it is multidimensional. All the economic, technological, economic, socio-cultural, and political forces act in combination in the process of transformation of lifestyle of any community in everywhere and at every level.

Globalization process is also called modernization which ....

Answer : The terms Great and Little Traditions were coined by a sociologist named Robert Redfield in the twentieth century to describe the cultural practices of peasant societies. He found that peasants observed rituals and customs that emanated from dominant social categories, including priests and rulers. These he classified as part of a Great Tradition. At the same time, peasants also followed local practices that did not necessarily correspond with those of the great ....

Answer : With agricultural policy success in wheat, India’s Green Revolution spread to rice. However, since irrigation infrastructure was very poor, Indian farmers used tube-wells to harvest ground water.

When gains from the new technology reached their limits in the states of initial adoption, the technology spread in the 1970s and 1980s to the states of eastern India- Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal. The lasting benefits of the improved seeds and new technology extended principally to the irrigated ....

Answer : The Green Revolution is used to denote the rapid increases in wheat and rice yields that happened in 1966-67 when Indian agriculture moved towards high yielding variety seeds with use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. However, its impact goes far beyond these immediate and very important results.

Over the course of the green revolution small-scale farmers, in particular rural small-scale farmers have acquired most of the stresses and burdens of the revolution and have been most ....

Answer : With agricultural policy success in wheat, India’s Green Revolution spread to rice. However, since irrigation infrastructure was very poor, Indian farmers used tube-wells to harvest ground water. When gains from the new technology reached their limits in the states of initial adoption, the technology spread in the 1970s and 1980s to the states of eastern India- Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal. The lasting benefits of the improved seeds and new technology extended principally to the ....